War conflict in Sri Lanka

Abstract:

Background/ justification
Following the end of the thirty years old civil war
in Sri Lanka, there were expectations that the
post‐war period would usher in peace, development
and reconciliation. The last four years have
witnessed several positive developments including
resettlement of people and rehabilitation of
infrastructure. Nonetheless there are range of
problems and policy gaps that have hindered the
transition from war to sustainable peace. A key
post-war challenge is that of violence against
religious sites and members of religious
communities.
The attack on a mosque in Dambulla by a mob led
by extremist Buddhist monks has reignited concern
about targeted violence against Muslim religious
minorities in Sri Lanka. The first serious riots
against Muslim by Buddhists took place in 1915.
After 1915, an occurrence of a riot of the same
nature as that of 1915 was the violence in 1975
when some Muslims were killed in the Puttalam
mosque due to a misconception that the Muslims
were an economically privileged group and which
fact fired the major motivation for anti-Muslim
hatred. More recently, from last year, there has
been an unprecedented level of violent attacks,
demonstrations and hate speech targeting Sri
Lanka’s Muslim population. Mainly perpetrated by
Buddhist-fascist fundamentalist groups, the events
have left the country’s second largest minority
community - the Muslims feeling afraid and
vulnerable which forcing a concerted campaign
against them. In addition to attacks on places of
religious worship there are calls to boycott Muslim
shops and establishments, all of which is increasing
tensions, particularly in areas where Muslims and
Sinhalese live close to each other. These were
virtually programmed by some prominent and
influential personalities in governing circles,
besides others who had a vested interest in seeing
Sri Lanka imploding amid heightening ‘communal
tensions.’ It noted a ‘sharp uptick’ in religiouslymotivated
violence and said the authorities are
‘passively and sometimes actively’ condoning
extremist Buddhist groups, such as the ‘Bodu Bala
Sena’ or ‘Buddhist power force’ and the Hela
Urmaya are the main groups behind these targeting
of Muslims.
Objectives of the research work
On this context, this study focuses on the recent
incident of violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka.
The primary objective of this study is to examine
the motive for violence against Muslims as well as
impact of the violence. The fundamental questions
of this research are the following: why does postwar
violence and hate propaganda arise against
Muslim in Sri Lanka? In which ways the violence
against minorities, particularly Muslims impact on
reconciliation process? And why does Buddhist
nationalist hegemony arise soon after civil war in
Sri Lanka?
Materials and methods
This study is based on an interpretive approach.
The data were collected from both primary and
secondary sources. In addition to primary sources,
qualitative interviews were conducted with selected
specialist on this particular research area.
Secondary sources such as published and
unpublished records were also consulted. Finally
this study provides appropriate recommendations to
improve ethnic relations in Sri Lanka.